Catalyst for Service Excellence

Overview

Strategies for a Customer Driven Economy

From the era of the industrial revolution when the focus was on the product, through the brand management cycle and more towards experience management, a very powerful underlying shift has taken place. This is often missed out in various commentaries on subjects such as customer centricity / sensitivity, brand management, customer churn / loyalty / disloyalty, and customer relationship management.

This shift has diminished the importance of the product / service being offered in relation to the experience at the moment of interaction. It is not hard to see why. In this era of globalization and hyper-competition, increasingly products and services in the market place are beginning to ‘look’ like each other. They do the same things, they are priced the same – and it is becoming increasingly difficult to own a market segment based on product superiority / differentiation alone. Simply put – commoditization. On what then does the consumer base her opinion of the brand / product / service? She forms her opinion based on the experience she has when she has to interact with the vendor organization for some reason. That interaction has indeed become the moment of truth and impacts the organization in various ways. For example:

92 percent of customers base their opinion of an organization on one single interaction. 74 percent of customers leave a brand because of poor service experience. 64 percent of customers in the US would have dropped at least one brand in the year due to poor service.

In a sense, delivering a great experience at the point of service is nothing short of brand management. Yet the way the domain has evolved has left a lot to be desired. There is a great need to understand and internalize the importance of the ‘moment of truth’ i.e. the point of interaction – and to then approach it from a customer first / customer led perspective.

Overview

Introducing Custommerce

Customer service standards worldwide are slipping. Ironically, while the fact that there is increasing customer dissatisfaction over service-related issues is much researched and documented – businesses and their customers differ significantly on what is causing this dissatisfaction. Businesses think the main reason their customers leave them is price. Consumers say they leave businesses because of poor service. Custommerce, a combination of the word Customer & Commerce, is a movement that will work towards identifying challenges facing the customer interaction / customer service industry and provide possible strategies to achieve customer centricity.

Custommerce was conceived with the aim to present organizations with the harsh reality that just cost of service, metrics and graphs are not a sustainable source of competitive advantage anymore. That excellence in service delivery is the only viable source of competitive advantage. Since its inception, Custommerce has elicited enthusiastic participation from senior management from diverse industries – leaders in their domains, connected by a common thread – excellence in service delivery and commitment to building customer-centric organizations for a customer-driven economy.